Trees in our homeland
by SakuraKurofodu
Summary: A tale of misery, happiness, and all in between.
1. Chapter 1: Purgatory

It was a warm day.  
It was a bright day.  
It was a day that she'd one day forget.  
Just as she would all the others.  
"So, what are you two having?"  
The young Beanish girl was short in stature, and an excited demeanor had taken-over her features. She wore a school uniform; that of the higher-set students. "I think the mint looks ice... What about you?" The second girl was a koopa, one of the second-to-last evolution on the first line. She turned to face the taller girl beside her as she spoke, leaning over the glass curvature that protected the various flavours of ice-cream.  
"... Eh? Oh, strawberry, please." "Are you okay? You seem to be phasing-out a lot. Is it one of those human sun-stroke things?"  
"No, no, I'm fine. I promise."  
"Vivian, you always lie about when you're sick. You don't have to worry about worrying me. Maybe you'll feel a little better after having your ice-cream. Here, have some."  
"Thanks, Claudia."  
"Hehe, don't mention it."  
"You know I will anyway."  
"Of course."  
The other two took their respective ice-creams and continued on their way down the cobblestone street to the next destination.

It was her first day of secondary school. She'd been placed in the middle sets so far due to her teacher's discrimination against her at her last school, but they couldn't deny the results of her official tests. She was walking to her second lesson with the left strap on her backpack hanging loosely below her waist, when she heard a cry for help from behind the corner a few meters in front of her. She crept up to it and looked around, keeping as much of her head and body hidden as possible. She saw a student in the boy's top-set uniform and year 8 tie being held up against the thinly-plastered concrete wall by two male students with year 10 ties and being kicked and spat on by a year 11 boy. She wanted to intervene immediately, but she was scared to as the boys were human, making them likely to attack her if she tried anything, plus they were a foot or so taller than she was. "Please... let me go..."  
"Why the fuck would we let a fucking tranny pussy cunt like you go? You fucking faggot."  
"I never did anything to you." "You were fucking born, that's what you did. You fucking pussy bitch."  
"Yeah, you like dressing like a bitch, don't you?"  
"Haha, fucking pansy."  
She uncovered herself from her hiding place...

...and stepped forth.

...  
After a while, the two stopped to rest on a bench far between the two main buildings of the school in a tree-covered retreat of the alternate link-path route. "Thank-you for saving me back there. My name's Vincent Ombres, but I prefer to be called Vivian. What's your name?"  
"I'm Claudia. Claudia Flurrie."

...  
She awoke from the dream. She took-in her surroundings: A plain room with a wooden structure for the walls. Her prison. The diazepam ground and poured into water on her bedside table. Her poison. The photo beside the tall, half-empty, chipped glass. Her peace.

She dragged herself out from beneath the tattered covers and made her way to the bathroom beside her chamber. Her whole body hurt, her lower abdomen being the worst offender. She took a look at her reflection; unkempt purple hair on the red side of the spectrum, a torn pyjama top with frayed sleeves that was far too big for her, but thankfully covered up the top halves of her thighs, and tired eyes completely devoid of life. Yet somehow, not joy...

A small voice chimed in.  
"Mama, Morton fell and bumped his nose on the table and now he's crying."  
"Okay, Ludwig, I'll come and help."  
Her oldest son, only four and already capable of dealing sensibly with situations even adults would find stressful, toddled out of the room and disappeared through the living room door. Her children were her last stand of hope. The bulge in her abdomen indicated that another, her fifth, was coming along. After what had happened to those that she loved...  
Killed...  
Tortured...  
Just because they were close to her...  
She had no-one left to care for her.  
She was a prisoner of that man. She was his slave. She was his toy. She was alone.

But she held strong.  
Even though it hurt.  
She did it for them.  
She did it for them. 


	2. Chapter 2: Oblivion

It was early evening. She'd awoken in a cold sweat, as she usually did. She'd become almost conditioned to the discomfort and exhaustion. Her footsteps resonated quietly throughout the hallway as she made her way yet again to the bathroom. The carpet was soft yet cold on her bare feet.

The same image greeted her in the mirror.  
Messy hair from struggling.  
Dull, tired eyes from her insomnia.  
Her face adorned with bruises.

She keeled-over from the sudden wave of nausea and stabbing pain in her stomach. A pained sound came from her mouth as the crimson fluid lurched from her mouth and into the sink before her.

She knew.  
She had known since long ago.  
Her time was almost up.  
It'd seemed distant when she was a child.  
But now...  
It stared her in the face.  
The truth.  
Plain as could be.  
Like a wounded fish amongst sharks.  
It could no longer hide.

And it terrified her.  
...

Mama's been tired lately.  
I don't know why.  
She says the red slime in the sink is nothing to worry about.  
But she's telling me to prepare for looking-after my siblings.  
I don't understand.  
I don't think I could.  
But she's saying she's sorry.  
And that she loves us.  
But I don't understand...  
Why does she say that?  
What does she mean?  
Why would I need to look after them?

...Where's mama going to go?

I do know now.  
I'm not sure I want to.  
Would it have been better if she'd just left us by a roadside and told us she'd be right back?  
Would it?  
Probably...  
Though, I don't know that.  
I'm not sure I can.  
But I can only hope.  
Only then could I ever do this...  
Only then...  
But how come?  
Why did she leave us? Why did hope abandon us?  
Why can't I just open my eyes and accept reality?  
Heh, how mature...  
Even in such times as this...  
I'm still just a fool.  
I've always been.  
But maybe...  
That's just childhood.  
...What childhood?  
Isn't it over now?  
Probably.  
No, certainly.  
I need to do as she said.  
I need to become an adult.  
I need to.  
I need to...  
I...

The weather had been terrible.  
The starvation had been terrible.  
The injuries had been terrible.  
But they'd made it.  
They'd made it to the city where they'd find decent shelter.  
A loving home.  
Enough food.  
And yet...  
Fate had seemed to screw them over again.  
There he lay.  
In the road.  
The traffic had stopped.  
They'd crowded around him.  
Wailing.  
Many others had done the same.  
In the boy's eyes, a memory flashed.  
A flower made into a ring.  
The other was older, but around the same height as him.  
Curly brown hair with a hint of auburn.  
Blue eyes concealed by the glare of the Summer sun.  
But just as soon, it had vanished.  
A hand pressed against his neck.  
A voice shouted something.  
And then it all faded to black.  
He was sure he'd seen that face before...

The room was white.  
A faint humming and clicking of machinery sounded in the background. His breathing was a little restricted by what he could only guess was an itchy fabric.  
A low voice was heard.  
"Welcome to the royal family, kid." 


	3. Chapter 3: Reincarnation

Though he couldn't seem to decipher it.  
He tried to open his eyes, but it was difficult. He tried to move, but his muscles hurt. "He seems to be awake, sire, but I don't think he understands our language. Here, I'll try."  
Again, it was utter jiberish to him.  
"Hello. Can you hear me?"  
This, however, he could. He tried to speak his reply, and it worked.  
"Yes."  
"How are you feeling?"  
"Tired."  
"Then you should rest. We'll introduce you later."  
At that, he let it fade again.

It had been a few months.  
At first, he'd thought he'd died and gone to heaven; there was decent food, warm beds, a homely atmosphere... He thought it wasn't possible. Not after all he'd been through.  
But it was.  
Turns-out, a certain political figure had been mere yards away when the accident happened and had managed to bring him into the royal grounds' hospital at which they managed to prevent his otherwise inevitable death. That political figure was Bowser Koopa, the current leader of the Darklands; a country-gone-empire that was on the opposing side of the war against the Mushroom kingdom. The war at this point had been going-on for about 356 years at this point, and had crippled the Darklands the most, making them lose technology, vital facilities, important documents, and much, much more. The medical field had perhaps suffered the most, experiencing a regression of at least 3 billion years. Their planet was far older than Earth's, making the creatures on its surface much more developed and perfected. All diseases has been eradicated millennia ago due to the perfecting of immune systems on the planet, giving diseases no chance in hell to reproduce. They'd reached Earth's current level of social development around 4.6 billion years ago, so had become highly developed by the time the humans started arriving.

At the time when their planet was created in a pile of lava and hell fire, as all rocky ones are, a group of asteroids had collided with it. Said asteroids had some sort of quantum entangled material in each of them. The remaining asteroids continued on their journey, hitting many other planets in the process, one of which was Earth. The rocks eroded over time, revealing the material concealed. Said material then acted as a portal to the other rock it was intertwined with, which just so happened to be that of which his species lived on. This portal became known as the 'Bermuda Triangle', consisting of three shards in a somewhat triangular arrangement. And that, kids, is how spiders and strawberries come from space.  
Anyway, he'd been learning the language of the Darklands since he'd recovered from an elderly man called Kamek who'd looked-after the prince since infantry due to his parent's death. They'd died away in a territory of theirs near the Mameria Kingdom in which they were fighting. The king and queen were captured and it is only rumored that they were executed via beheading. As a result, Kamek was forced to rather suddenly take the young orphaned prince into his care. Ever since, he'd been like a father, and mother, to the royal child.

Such had never been a hinderance. ...

"But-"  
"I don't care if you're only 14 you useless fag, I saved my bitch from a gorilla, so you gotta save that blond princess bitch from those koopa scum. You're already a failure to me, so you might as well try to prove yourself to me rather than get yourself in more shit."  
"... Yes, father."  
"Now get me some more liquor, you fuckbag."  
The young Italian boy limped out of his house and away from his alcohol-dependent and abusive father, leaving only to come back and fuel the fire. 


	4. Chapter 4: Requiem

Familiarity. That was all that passed through his mind at that moment, yet he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

The other, however, remembered the day clearly.

It was a hazy, blurred afternoon in the rundown park a few miles South of where he lived. It was somewhat noisy from dialogue, but he couldn't see quite where it was coming from. A young boy, a few years older than him, had started to walk around with him due to the lack of satiable company he could find amoungst the others. They didn't speak each-other's languages, so they refrained from talking. No words were needed, anyway.

They'd been enjoying each-other's company for a few hours when they decided to make things out of the natural surroundings. They'd been in a patch of flowers when the young Italian boy had made a ring from a small white flower of Earthly origin called a daisy, and had slipped it onto the finger of the other.

Said other would never forget that day.

It was a little awkward.

They'd been standing there, taking-in the sight before them for around a minute. Then, one broke the ice.  
"So... Are you one of Bowser's minions?"  
It took the other a few seconds to muster a stuttering reply.  
"Y-yes."  
"I have a feeling I've seen you before, but I can't remember where."  
"W-well, I'm sure i-it doesn't matter."  
"So... Are we going to fight or will you give-up the key?"  
He didn't want to hurt the boy, bu he didn't want to betray the people who'd saved his life, either.

So he chose the former with the intention of giving-up any position as winner.

He sat on the ground with only minor injuries, but held a facade of being badly hurt for the sake of the situation. The other boy approached him with something held in his hand.  
"Here, have this."  
He opened his hand and outstretched it to the other, revealing a bandage and plaster. The other looked surprised at the kindness, but accepted nonetheless.  
"Thank-you."  
"You're welcome."  
The boy turned to leave and collect the key, but stopped to ask the other another question.  
"By the way, I never asked your name."  
"I-its Ludwig. It's Ludwig."  
"Mine's Mario. Heh, excuse my alliteration."  
"It's no problem."  
And with that, he left.  
And with that, he was left with his own thoughts.

It was darkness inside the castle.  
But not all was quite yet still.  
The boy looked a his reflection;  
Soft, slightly unkempt dark teal hair,  
youthful, excited brown eyes,  
and a childish yet emotional smile.

Such happiness would lead to other things, surely.  
But there is always a calm before and after the storm.

Day one on Mitisenzak:  
Drowsiness experienced. Prominent sensation of nausea. Patient says to feel emotionally drained entirely on medication. Considering dropping Mitisenzak after a few days.

Day five on Mitisenzak:  
Patient has dropped medications of all kinds altogether due to various side-effects. Reportedly improved already.

Lies.

Dirty, filthy lies.

Fabricated to look like beauty.

But hiding the painfully bitter truth.

Auto-cannibalism of one's soul must be a distressing thing, certainly.

Certainly.

Certainly.

Certainly. 


End file.
